“The word ‘ballad’ in English signifies a narrative song, a short tale in lyric verse, which sense it has come to have, probably through the English, in some other languages. It means, by derivation, a dance-song, but though dancing was formerly, and in some places still is, performed to song instead of instrumental music, the application of the word in English is quite accidental. The popular ballad, for which our language has no unequivocal name, is a distinct and very important kind of poetry. Its historical and natural place is anterior to the appearance of the poetry of art, to which is has formed a step and by which it has been regularly displaced, and, in some cases, all but distinguished.”


I interpret this bit of Child as showing he was influenced by the social Darwinism that was influential at the time in folkloric circles, as well as more generally. This view that society and indeed 'races' evolved was one of the ideological beliefs underpinning the denial of equal rights to African-Americans.

So he is viewing the ballad as a step on the social evolutionary chain towards the poetry of art. Child claims, with no evidence, and entirely unconvincingly as far as I am concerned, that at a certain point in the development of societies verse and not prose is the natural means of expression.

He claims that at this point the society is unified with no social divisions and that therefore the verse expresses the whole of the society. The whole society forms an individual he says. Again, there is a distinct lack of evidence. However, this fantasy view of the primitive society allows Child to explain what he calls an absence of subjectivity and self-consciousness. (this idea links to the 3rd person form of many traditional ballads).

Child goes on to say that as the society develops the traditional verse is abandoned to the less educated.   I could summarise more but I have already quoted some of what he says on this thread. The article is relatively easy to find. I think I learned about it somewhere on this forum.